Death Crushes You
by All The Trees in the Field
Summary: Death Crushes You; You Think Briefly, Desperately, Fondly of a Girl You Knew Years Ago, Still Terribly in Love With Her
1. Zero

Everyone you know was born with an armful of gifts, wrapped lovingly in placenta and shimmering exactly in the same way that wrapping paper gleams. Like all good gifts, these gifts are hand made or better; woven in blood and bone, strands of DNA curling up into the air with all the joy of a firecracker. You cried on that day; you were glowing and flooded with life.

It's hard to look back on that moment without feeling completely victorious.

I hope you don't mind me recounting these things to you; I'm so proud of you, if I knew you I would never stop smiling at you. I would be happily weeping all the time. I guess thats the problem with the things I've said to you: I've never met you, I never will.

I was born to see. It's sometimes troubling, sickening, or embarrassing. Sometimes it seems terrible. Sometimes it seems voyeuristic and perverse. I refuse to be ashamed of the gifts I was given, though. Imagine me: stunning and dreamlike, black hair ruffled expertly into the most birdlike shag, elegantly tall and poised. I reach one pale, unblemished hand up to my left and cover it with my long fingers, I open my mouth slightly but the words come clearly to your ears, "Thank you for this gift."

It's not hard to describe; anyone who has watched a movie knows the feeling: the wall of vision that looks in on the unaware. The angles aren't always beautiful, the people not so compelling, the plot impenetrable and going nowhere, but still, peering in on someone's story with no means or intention of altering it. Some people who star in these visions I know, most I have never met. Very few are reoccurring, except for you.

I've been seeing a lot of you lately, Ness, it makes me wonder why.


	2. One: We've been so hungry

1. We've been so hungry, who knows for how long. who could ever know.

I've always heard that the number one fear is speaking in public. I find that very hard to believe. Not that I don't find that terrifying, nor that I doubt that anyone would find such a mortifying act beyond their ability to calmly consider, but it's just that I find it to be rather circumstantial. Perhaps they were only considering the quality of the fear, perhaps more people are regularly forced to speak publically than I would estimate, but how often can someone really say they lay sobbing, curled against a cold wall with only public dictation as the single ghost endlessly haunting them?

It's a shallow stab at an ocean of fear. It was the biggest fish they could catch.

A child girl stands on a blackened stage; she is pinned in a spotlight, helpless and squirming like a spider caught within a clean plastic cup. Watching her from the universes beyond the stage are unknown crowds of seated figures. The black sounds surrounding the spotlight are enormous and terrifying; she closes her eyes and pretends she is standing in an open field. Above her a sea of clouds shakes with explosions, below her the ground is tearing apart. She places her tiny hands on her stomach and remembers the message she has come here to reveal. Her mouth opens slightly and the shadows below come to a dead silence, then she speaks in god's voice, "You've been afraid for so long, but I know that you've been having trouble figuring out exactly when you're so scared of. It's okay, I'm here now to tell you."

She opens her eyes for a moment and the blackness below seems moist; there are too many eyes, everything looks translucent and primal.

"You've been wondering if your life has any meaning."

Someone in the front row rubs their hands together too perversely, the sound is similar to an old house sagging in against itself.

"You're worried, I know, because there is nothing to say that your life does, in fact, mean anything at all."

Some people are silently crying. The whole room smells like an ocean. Everyone feels like they've taken a look around them and there was no land in sight.

"I'm only here to say how sorry I am, I'm so sorry. I can't tell you if your life has meaning, no one can tell you that, and worse, if your life does have meaning... I'm not sure that you will ever be aware of it, even then. Even at the height of meaning, even when you're the only thread holding this horrible quilt together."

"I'm so sorry. I. Personally. feel that being afraid is okay. I'm so afraid, I can barely speak right now."

"I hope that everything will be okay, but I can't make any promises."

"Thank you for coming."

The stillness is suffocating.


End file.
